1st Performance

This was my first work to split the critics. The work was lost on Bayan Northcott, David Murray and Nick Kenyon but it was highly rated by many others. The Royal Albert Hall doesn’t suit my intricate orchestration and since then my symphonic works have been premiered at the Barbican, London. Still, it was a joyous occasion for me.

“A Welcome Journey”

There is nothing ordinary about the landscape through which this work travels. Hoyland begins in dry scorched territory, littered with broken bones. Yet the work’s movement is purposeful. Each of the first two passages winds up becalmed on solo flutes and strings, and there is a beautiful cor anglais solo. But the real arrival comes with a taut, driven cadenza for the percussionists, striking to the heart of the work’s more brave that brutal personality.Paul Griffiths

“Extending Melody”David Osmond-Smith

“When melody takes a walk”Merion Bowen

“Drive and inner power”Geoffrey Norris

"So assured is the handling of forces and the formal plan of the work. At the end the jerky rhythms are disciplined into an impressive ritual dance.”David Cairns, Sunday Times